I have been musing on a presentation I attended at the American Academy of Religion. Associate Dean Donna Bowman, Ph.D. of the University of Central Arkansas spoke on the prayer shawl ministry. Traditionally, the prayer shawl (tallis gadol, in Hebrew) is worn by men, based on the commandment to tie fringes (tzitzit) on the corners of their garments (Numbers 15:38-40). Also traditionally, a man would have one tallis for every day use and a special one for the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement (Rosh Hashanaha and Yom Kippur). While there is no prohibition in Jewish law against women wearing a tallis there has typically been the understanding that it is a man’s obligation to wear the fringes, so women have not (that whole separation of gender roles thing). But over time, as women have found entrée into Jewish leadership, the tallis started to be worn by us. Some Jewish women now have the most delicate talleisim – pink, gold, lace, dancing women, butterflies, ribbons, etc., while others create stories about Jewish text (midrash) on their talleisim, using symbols, pictures, text phrases, and the like. Continue reading “Evolution of My Tallis by Rabbi D’vorah Rose”
Author: Guest Contributor
In Honor of All that Gives Life by Ashley Anderson
The depth of life’s interconnection is our greatest vulnerability and our greatest hope. We are beings in relation.
Today we celebrate Mother’s Day. Drenched in some strange amalgam of consumerism and genuine desire to nurture the ones who have nurtured us, we buy flowers and gift cards. We plan Sunday brunches or make that extra-long phone call to our mothers living far from us. My own mother, to whom I owe my courage and creativity, lives two thousand miles away. It was she whose breath gave rise to my own, whose gentle strength and fierce passion made way for my being in the world. It is my mother to whom I trace my beginning, and yet, if life is as Anais Nin imagines it, a “process of becoming” are we not ever-beginning? If all life itself is in process, if the powers of destruction and creation flow, creating and re-creating all that is, I wonder at the wombs that make and re-make us.
This process of becoming is an adventure through the whirlwind, a tour of the chaosmos. Our becoming, wrapped up with the becoming of Creation itself, is an unwinding of the fibers of the universe and our own souls, spiraling toward liberation. And so, on this Mother’s Day, I offer gratitude and honor toward all that gives us birth, to all who take part in our process of becoming.
In honor of ourselves. There is a sense that each of our beginnings emerges out of a wound, out of a dying. The day I was born was the day I received my first scar. I was a C-Section baby and the doctor nicked the edge of my forehead narrowly missing my eye. Soon enough, the wound healed and I still have a tiny scar by my right eye. Today, many years and many scars later, I marvel at our ability to heal. We give life to ourselves, after the movements of death have swept through us, after long nights of grief and the collapse of all we knew. In the quiet stillness of a soul razed, creativity moves. Continue reading “In Honor of All that Gives Life by Ashley Anderson”
A RITUAL OF FAITH: SENDING LOVE TO THE CHILDREN OF VETERANS by Stephanie Mines
May is the Month of Mary and the Month of Mothers. With this in my heart I want to ask everyone receiving this newsletter to SEND LOVE to the children in the families of our returning veterans. As vets stream back from Iraq and Afghanistan, many with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and/or TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), the children in their families are the most vulnerable to how war comes home.
Children are prime targets for the unnoticed and untreated war wounds of intergenerational shock. As politicians wrangle for power and use the current wars for that purpose, the children absorb the fallout and cannot hide. Their very shelter is a war zone. I am not talking about a few children. I am talking about thousands and thousands of children. The Pentagon itself notes, through Dr. Sonja Batten, Assistant Deputy Chief of Patient Services for the VA, “PTSD and TBI are occurring in unprecedented numbers. At least 320,000 soldiers have been diagnosed with TBI and one in eight returning soldiers has PTSD.” Continue reading “A RITUAL OF FAITH: SENDING LOVE TO THE CHILDREN OF VETERANS by Stephanie Mines”
A Semester of “Gendering Mormonism” by Patrick Mason
Readers of FAR have been treated to a number of posts over the past few months from members of the “Gendering Mormonism” class I taught this semester at Claremont Graduate University. I was fairly apprehensive in offering the course. For one, I’m not a scholar of gender, gender studies, feminist theory, feminist theology, queer studies, queer theology, or anything related—I’m a historian of American religion, and most of my training to that effect was about the white guys in American religion (most of whom, you’ll be shocked to learn, weren’t exactly feminists). I have also spent some time in international peace studies, where I got a crash course in issues of gender justice. But I entered this course as a relative novice. This is one of the fun things about being a member of a graduate faculty—as a professor I don’t have to pretend to be the fount of all wisdom all the time, and I learn a lot from students who are often more expert in a particular field than I am. Continue reading “A Semester of “Gendering Mormonism” by Patrick Mason”
The Inquisition of Today and U.S. Women Religious by Ivone Gebara
Statement from Ivone Gebara, writer, philosopher and theologian from Brazil on the Vatican action against U.S. religious women.
Translated from Portuguese. Reprinted with permission.
Once again, we watch dumbfounded as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith directs a “doctrinal assessment of” or a “calling attention to” or the “punishment of” those who, according to the CDF, break away from the proper observance of Catholic doctrine. Only this time, the CDF is not pointing an accusatory finger at a person, but rather at an institution that brings together and represents more than 55,000 women religious in the United States- namely, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, known by its acronym LCWR.
Throughout their long history, these women religious developed and continue to develop a broad educational mission which advances the dignity of many people and groups both within and beyond the United States. Most of these women belong to diverse national and international congregations.
In addition to their Christian and humanistic formation, they are intellectuals and professionals in various fields of knowledge. They are writers, philosophers, biologists, sociologists, lawyers and theologians. They have broad backgrounds and their expertise is recognized nationally and internationally. They also are educators, catechists and human rights activists. In many situations, they set their lives at the service of those affected by injustice or set themselves in opposition to the grave actions taken by the government of the United States. Continue reading “The Inquisition of Today and U.S. Women Religious by Ivone Gebara”
Maiden and Monster by Daniel Cohen
A story that follows on from my version of Perseus and Medusa…
Perseus flew on, away from Medusa. He gave thanks to Athene that he had understood her words, “It is necessary that I have the head of Medusa. Therefore I bid you seek her out”, just in time to avoid a killing.
He flew across the sea until he reached a rocky coastline, the boundary of a fertile kingdom. Here he landed and was given hospitality by the king and queen. Though they made him a welcome guest he could see that they were greatly upset and he asked why. He learnt that they had offended the Changeless Changeable Ones, the Goddesses of the Sea. They had sent out a sea-serpent and demanded that the princess Andromeda be given to the monster. The king and queen begged Perseus, who they could see was a hero, to aid them and he agreed.
Next morning Andromeda was taken to the seashore and chained to a rock. She asked them not to chain her, saying that it was not necessary and that the monster was her fate. But they were afraid she would run away and bring a worse disaster on the land, and they would not listen to her.
Perseus leapt lightly into the air on his winged sandals, while the king and queen and all the people retired to the safety of a cliff-top. Perseus looked at Andromeda as he waited for the monster – as she stood there so calmly the tall grey-eyed young woman seemed to him like a mortal image of Athene. He looked out to sea where great waves were coming in as the monster approached. The monster in some way reminded him of the Gorgon. He waited for the monster to come closer. Continue reading “Maiden and Monster by Daniel Cohen”
The Singer’s Lost Love by Daniel Cohen
This is based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Once there was a singer. Some said he was the finest singer that ever lived. And indeed his tunes were marvellous. Once he had escaped from wild beasts by playing and singing to them a quiet tune until they drifted to sleep. He had dispelled a snowstorm by singing of his delight in the hot days of summer. It was even said that once the rhythms of the dance he was playing were so lively that the trees themselves lifted up their roots to join in.
In time he met a maiden and they fell in love. Together they wandered, and all his songs were songs of joy and in praise of her. As he played and she danced, flowers sprung up behind them, and it seemed as if all the world shared in their joy. The skies were blue, the sun was hot, and from time to time they were refreshed by showers.
All went well until one day they saw an empty snakeskin on the path. The singer shuddered, for he was reminded of poison and death. But his love was delighted by the snakeskin, picked it up and showed him how it reflected the light and took on many colours, and how the snake had grown and left its unwanted skin behind to give others pleasure. He would not listen, and closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears trying to shut out what he could not understand.
That night they went to sleep as usual, but when he awoke in the morning she was not there. He looked for her, thinking she was teasing him and was not far away. Continue reading “The Singer’s Lost Love by Daniel Cohen”
Re-Imagining Resurrection in Light of The Hunger Games by Tiffany L. Steinwert
Love is defiant. In a cruel world of violence and vengeance, love is the ultimate rebellion: the only thing that can beat back the forces of death and destruction.
It is an interesting coincidence that when both Jewish and Christian communities were rehearsing our respective salvation narratives, the world outside of synagogues and congregations was consumed with the story of The Hunger Games, a young adult novel turned Hollywood hit. This trilogy chronicles the coming of age and struggle for freedom of Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old citizen of the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem.
As we in the Christian tradition journey through the Easter season, the dystopic world of the Hunger Games invites us to re-imagine resurrection in light of a crucified world.
We first meet Katniss as she sets off for the annual Hunger Games, a state sponsored television show, a cross between the pseudo-reality shows of Survivor and Fear Factor and the very real, ancient Roman gladiator battles. Invented by the Capitol as a form of perpetual discipline and punish for a past rebellion of the 12 (once 13) districts, the Games require each district to send two children, or tributes, to star in a live broadcast battle in which the adolescent scapegoats kill one another until only one remains.
There is a reason why our nation has been captivated by this tale and it is not because it is so fantastical that we cannot imagine it. Continue reading “Re-Imagining Resurrection in Light of The Hunger Games by Tiffany L. Steinwert”
1972: Can We Talk? — Looking for Spaces to Share by Lisa Clayton
“Why do you care what God says?”
““Don’t you want to be liberated?”
“How can you be serious about being a Mormon?”
Those were a few of the questions I fielded the year I, a devout Mormon, worked as an intern at the University of Utah’s new Women’s Resource Center. As I studied at the “U” in the early 1970’s I encountered second wave feminism and its brand of secularism that challenged the prevailing Mormon-centric environment.
I was introduced to feminism in workshops at the newborn Resource Center, and as an intern I helped plan and put on its inaugural women’s conference. The women there were excited and exciting. They were exploring feminist ideas during a very heady time for college women. Continue reading “1972: Can We Talk? — Looking for Spaces to Share by Lisa Clayton”
Buffy Vs. Bella by Anjeanette LeBoeuf
In the past four years I have become overwhelmed by society’s thirst for vampires. The introduction of True Blood, Twilight, and The Vampire Diaries has marked a downright fervor for anything and everything “vampire.” Now don’t get me wrong, I like a good vampire story now and again. One of the first books I remember reading solely on my own was Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I grew up watching the WB show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a coup d’état that I got to watch a show that had very visible scenes of violence, evil, and death, but I’m pretty sure that my parents thought that if watching this show was my only act of rebellion, they were in good shape. What I remember most about watching Buffy wasn’t really that it was a show about vampires, but that it was a show about a strong high school girl that had to save the world — which is exactly what I wanted to do.
I have always gravitated towards the mythical and supernatural, which is one of the reasons I study religion in the first place. Society uses vampire stories as a way to transmit social critiques. Vampire stories began to expand on the common idea that women were easily seduced by the “dark side” and that a strong male would need to swing in to save the day. Continue reading “Buffy Vs. Bella by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”
Feminism and Religion 